Research Update 6

This article is interesting because it emphasizes that gender-role stereotypes are being broken down and used in a way to help boost the importance of weak culture groups. Even though I find Dora very annoying little kids love her. It is amazing that an educational show can be so entertaining and effective. Dora is the one of the leading educational television shows for children on television now and a girl is the main character. I think this article is going to help me refine my topic even more. I think I am going to focus on female gender-role stereotypes in children’s television and how they have changed since the beginning of educational TV to now. I would start with Sesame Street, the first educational show, and then eventually end up at Dora.

           

Ryan, Erin L. “Dora the Explorer: Empowering Preschoolers, Girls and Latinas.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 54.1 (Jan 2010) p54-68. Academic Search Premier. Web. 06  Mar 2011.

Erin L. Ryan explains that the children’s television show “Dora the Explorer” is empowering three traditionally weak groups: women, preschooler, and Latinas. She analyzes two episodes of the show for elements that go against the traditional stereotypes and give power to these minorities. In the two episodes, Dora was portrayed as two different roles, the damsel in distress and the savior. However, she turns out to be heroine in both episodes. Dora is forward, often asking questions to the audience and commanding them to say things in Spanish. However, producers were aware to make her relatable to all preschoolers by making her averaged sized and talk in both English and Spanish.  While Dora is clearly transforming the traditional female image, she still does have distinct gender clues. She is always wearing a blue bracelet with a flower on it and when she jumps up and down her shirt will show her belly. These female characteristics balance her forward personality and boy like shorts. As Ryan concludes her article, she says that Dora shares her identity as a young child, a Latina and a girl with her viewers every week.

Research Update 5

While this article was older, I found that it was still helpful because it talks about children’s psychology. This is the first article that I’ve found on how children remember and perceive gender-role stereotypes. This article was almost common sense. I expected that children from traditional homes would notice the altered sex-roles more than children with nontraditional backgrounds. Hopefully I can find another article that is more modern and involves some of the shows I want to write about.

Collins, W. Andrews, Judith A. List and Sally D. Westby. “Comprehension and Inferences from Traditional and Nontraditional Sex-Role Portrayals on Television.” Child Development 54.6. p1579-1587 (Dec 1983). Web. Academic Search Premier. 2 Mar 2011.

Collins, List and Westby’s study of children’s perceptions of gender-role stereotypes analyzes not only if children remember nontraditional sex-roles shown on television more than traditional ones but also if they are remembered more easily by children holding traditional or nontraditional stereotypical sex-role views. Third grade students from metropolitan Minneapolis public schools participated in the study. They viewed films of “traditional” and “nontraditional” gender stereotypes and then were asked to take a multiple-choice test to see which sex-roles they remembered the most easily. To make sure the study had as little bias as possible, the students were about 50 percent male and 50 percent female from different backgrounds and different levels of stereotype recognition. The study concluded that children with strong sex-role stereotypes already in place were more likely to remember when sex-roles were altered. Children noticed when gender-roles were stereotyped and also when the typical male and female stereotypes were broken down.